Wealthy hospitals owe their health to 'safety nets'

Hospital lobbyists high-fiving over their latest victory in Springfield had better hold their elation in check.

Yes, they smacked down another attempt by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to force wealthy hospitals to pay more toward medical care for the poor. As Mike Colias reported in Crain's last week, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by the state Legislature decided not to recommend a law requiring that hospitals looking to expand give money to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of Medicaid recipients and other underinsured patients. In the end, all the panel recommended was a requirement that hospitals provide a statement assessing the impact of proposed expansions on "safety net" hospitals.

We can hear the hospital lobbyists snickering. The notion that an expansion project by a wealthy hospital might threaten a safety net facility is downright laughable. Rest assured that the likes of Northwestern Memorial and Lutheran General aren't plotting to build state-of-the-art facilities in North Lawndale to lure Medicaid patients away from Mount Sinai. Any new facilities they might build will be in areas where most patients have good insurance.

But hospitals and their lobbyists should remember Joe Louis' maxim and realize that they can't hide from the problem of inadequate medical care for people without private health insurance. If the safety net hospitals give way, those patients will end up in the emergency rooms and surgical theaters of the remaining hospitals.

Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, hospitals are linked in a single health care system. Ailments afflicting parts of that system eventually spread to the rest.

Wealthy hospitals owe a large measure of their financial success to the fact that safety nets bear a heavier load of underinsured patients. If the safety net collapses, so will their profits.

Hospitals are powerful when they band together, as Ms. Madigan can attest. Now it's time they used their collective power  and wealth  to cure the financial ills of safety net hospitals.